Visitors, donations pour in for icon
Image of a crying Our Lady of Fatima in Carcar City. (CDN PHOTO/ JUNJIE MENDOZA)
A small chapel in barangay Ocaña, Carcar City is receiving a daily stream of visitors following reports that its image of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood.
Jonah Regis said pilgrims from Carcar City to as far as Daanabantayan town in northern Cebu leave cash donations at the altar of the image of Our Lady of Fatima.
She said her family has so far collected P5,000 and plans to buy a glass case for the image as well as to repaint and set up a roof over the chapel.
“We would have wanted to keep what happened to ourselves. I don’t know who spread the news. We are not claiming it’s a miracle because we are also in doubt,” she said.
Regis, 26, said her 5-year-old brother, John Patrick, first noticed the blood stains on the face of the icon while he was playing inside the chapel located beside their house last Sunday.
Tightlipped
She said the boy told their father Nelson Regis about what he saw but the parent didn’t believe it until he viewed the image the next day.
When Msgr. Esteban Binghay, episcopal vicar of the Cebu Archdiocese visited the roadside chapel yesterday morning, he saw red stains beside the image’s nose.
Binghay said it’s too early to conclude that the stain was blood. This has to be authenticated by experts, he said.
The chapel of the Our Lady of Fatima in Carcar City will have some minor renovation to accommodate the daily stream of visitors. (CDN PHOTO/ JUNJIE MENDOZA)
Difficult situation
Still, Binghay asked Cebuanos to continue their devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by praying the rosary.
Binghay directed Fr. Marlito Binondo, parish priest of the Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Ocaña, to investigate and submit a report on the incident.
The Regis family bought the one-meter-tall image from the Marian Monks of the Eucharistic Adoration in Lindogon in barangay Simala, Sibonga town 11 years ago.
Jonah Regis said their grandparents had a chapel built beside their house for the image.
“We are in a difficult situation. I very well know that some people are thinking that we placed the blood stains on the image,” Regis said.
“That image has been with us for quite some time already. Who would have thought that it would shed tears of blood?” her younger brother Jonah said.
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